The Crystal Room

Final Fantasy II has stats level up the more you use them (attacking raises strength, casting magic raises Intellect (Black) or Mind (White) and Magic (which raises MP growth, which is also raised if you lose a lot of MP in battle), getting hit raises Vitality and HP (but the latter also raises automatically in the GBa ports on). It could've been worse; you could lose stats when some go up!

Shields aren't made to raise Defense; they're made to raise Evade, which raises along your agilty and Shield level. Bizzarly, shield level doesn't raise evasion level (which contributes to why the first battle is unwinnable - your enemy has a massive evade and a large evade level) like weapon level does with hit level (basically, it increases the number of times you can hit and will hit - if your target has an evade level of , say, 2, and you have a hit level of 4, you have to hit at least twice). This is a pain late in the game where enemies have high hit levels and inflict many a status per hit and you probably won't have enough evade levels to negate all hits.) I think having attack decrease with a shield on is supposed to represent you not two-handing the weapon - later games have a similar ability that enhances attack when you have a one-handed weapon on but no shield. 

All that said, I really can't blame you for quitting FFII.

*decided to give FFII a second chance*

It still feels weird, but I'm getting the hang of the system now.

Also, I find it funny that the item you get to cure amnesia is a mallet.

jokool wrote:*decided to give FFII a second chance*

It still feels weird, but I'm getting the hang of the system now.

Also, I find it funny that the item you get to cure amnesia is a mallet.

Kinda off topic but I remember how in one of the Paper Mario games(TTYD I think) you had to hit someone with a hammer to get rid of their amnesia so maybe it's a obscure folk kinda thing.

More on topic the only FF I've played have been IV(on the GBA) And XIII Is IV anything like II?

Not at all! For one, II has a weird leveling system that hasn't been used in any other actual Final Fantasy games, but has been used in SaGa, known as Final Fantasy Legend in the US of A. (And even then, not completely - FFII has you level up spells by using them, Legend uses a Fire Emblem-type system regarding spells.) Also there's no Active Time Battle system, just Traditional Turn Battle.

Real quick, are there any other main games that have a weird level system, or is just mainly II?

Well, X has the Sphere Grid, and XIII has the Crystarium, but those are pretty straightforward - the only difference is that you need (typically pretty easily found) items for the former and need to apply the EXP rather then just have your guys passively level up. XII also has a License Board, which is a fancy way of having your guys be able to equip stuff and use magicks and technicks.

well, VIII had the enemies and bosses level up with you, so you DON'T want to level up for the sake of the final bosses.

Well yeah that too but when he said "weird level systems" I thought he meant "you don't use EXP to get to the next level".

VIII's level system is also rather weird in that you require the same amount of EXP to level up every time.

Lief Katano wrote:Well yeah that too but when he said "weird level systems" I thought he meant "you don't use EXP to get to the next level".

VIII's level system is also rather weird in that you require the same amount of EXP to level up every time.

How does that work? Do the foes give less exp the more you level up?

Well, the foes are consistentish throughout the game, 'cuz they level up as you do. So...I think if their level is lower (due to the RNG) they do give less EXP? But their stats go up faster then yours do.

There's three Final Fantasy XIII games?

XIII, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

Okay, went back to II just now:

Opened a chest and found this:

another annoyance:

That's why we use magic! ...which you have been using but ran out of. I do find it rather hilarious that the Sergeant dealt 0 damage, though.

Finding the mythril is rather good, though, 'cuz you can upgrade to a new tier of weaponry. Don't worry, you don't have to do this for the whole game.